Members of the Conservative Action Project, a far right-wing network that supported former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in office after his 2020 election defeat​, are demanding that Congress reject legislation protecting the freedom to marry. So are the anti-equality Alliance Defending Freedom and leaders of dozens of other religious-right groups.

The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House of Representatives on July 19 with the support of about one-quarter of House Republicans, reflecting the reality that more than 70 percent of Americans—including a majority of Republicans—support the freedom of same-sex couples to get married. More than 90 percent of Americans support marriage rights for interracial couples, who are also protected under the legislation.

But religious-right leaders hostile to legal equality for LGBTQ people were angry that the bill received bipartisan support. They have refused to recognize the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling as legitimate, and they have been emboldened by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s call for the court to overturn rulings recognizing and protecting the rights of LGBTQ people and same-sex couples the way it overturned Roe v. Wade.

A group of anti-equality leaders signed a Conservative Action Project letter dated July 26, which claimed that the Respect For Marriage Act would “wrongly marginalize social conservatives” and further “a new era of oppression” that the letter claims was unleashed when the Supreme Court recognized the right of same-sex couples to get married.